


What does a man do when he tempts fate?

by IvvyQueen



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Blood and Injury, F/M, Late Night Conversations, Light Angst, Pain, Romantic Soulmates, Soulmate-Identifying Marks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-30
Updated: 2020-12-30
Packaged: 2021-03-11 05:27:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,955
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28419861
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IvvyQueen/pseuds/IvvyQueen
Summary: Annie discovers who she truly is to Eren, in the least fashionable of ways, when he arrives to her apartment after he suffers a small accident on his motorbike.
Relationships: Annie Leonhart/Eren Yeager
Comments: 4
Kudos: 43





	What does a man do when he tempts fate?

‘‘You’re a real jerk. You know that, right?’’

‘‘Yeah.’’

Annie sighed, nails digging in Eren’s tan cheeks. 

The lamp posts and the apartments’ bisque lights shed inside her own, circling around the rays of the white bulb, and the blue reflections of the moon over the city. 

A single lightbulb rained down on the room, its light weak and flickering over their heads. It didn’t swing nor did it sway, still in place as Annie moved around him, her hands travelling the wounded inches of his aching body, careful with every gauze and bandage she placed on him.

‘‘You still haven’t told me what happened to you.’’ She said, running the alcohol-soaked cotton around the thin cut that ran through the end of his thick, dark eyebrow.

Sweat ran down from the center of his chest, down to his tinted-red, patched up stomach, scratched up and toned. ‘‘I was lucky, that’s what.’’

Annie pressed the red around his cut, Eren flinched at the electric jolt that travelled down the left side of his face.

‘‘S-sorry. I was careless, I didn’t think the road would be that slippery and I... fell off the motorbike.’’

‘‘You fell off the  _ what? _ ’’

Eren winced once more, his bad eye closed shut. He moved back when she leaned down with her question. She didn’t shout, her voice dropped to a whisper, the hiss of a snake threatened, but it rang worse in his ears than the rumbling of a scream.

‘‘I couldn’t sleep, I didn’t want to be at home. I just wanted to-’’

‘‘No, no. You’re not just a jerk, you’re an idiot too. You’re lucky it doesn’t hurt any more afterwards and that it won’t scar me, or I’d gouge your eye out right now.’’

His mouth closed, his head rested on her stomach as she forcefully tilted his head sideways, searching for more cuts or injuries around his neck.

His arms snaked around her waist in two circles, his breaths warming up her shirt. ‘‘Listen, I didn’t mean for you to find out this way, okay? I hoped you never would.’’

His hands tugged at the fabric of her shirt, his shallow breaths warming her flesh underneath as they hitched, hunched over to ease his burning pain.

‘‘How long have you known?’’

‘‘That we’re soulmates?’’

From white lilies to red roses in blossom, her face burned with an intensity only matched by the sun, nowhere to be seen above in the darkened, lilac skies. Her shirt wrinkled under the weight of his chin pulling it down, her hands on his broad, damp shoulders. 

‘‘Eren, you’re heavy...’’

‘‘Just, give me a moment. I’m still sore everywhere from- well, yeah,’’ he begged, his head dropping back, ‘‘I’ve known since high school.’’

Annie froze, his head back against her stomach; she shivered when his forehead wrinkled and his frown drew close, every word from his mouth and every moment a burning ache.

‘‘You showed up with your leg all broken. You said the doctor told you to stay at home, but you were so stubborn on coming to school because you’d studied so hard for a dumb art midterm.’’

Annie ran her fingers through his long, loose hair. Dark waves her index flowed so freely through. At the very least, she could comfort him so.

‘‘I never thought much of all the bruises and hits until. I didn’t have the heart to tell you I’d woken up in the middle of the afternoon to a fucking brutal pain, or that in the morning my leg was the same color as a goddamn blueberry because you’d overworked yourself with your dad.’’

She remained quiet, reminiscing of that day, one she never thought worth remembering.

‘‘You could’ve told me sooner.’’

‘‘I wasn’t sure, alright?’’ He stood up from her couch. ‘‘We spent all our time sparring, you kicked the living shit out of me! I kicked and fought back! How was I supposed to know...?’’

The muscles on his throat outlined for a split second, hands covering his face; Eren paced around the small apartment with heavy, barefooted steps. 

Her fingers hovered on the warmth of his back, over the surface-level scratches that ran across his shoulder blades.

‘‘I’ve made a living out of bad decisions and being a dumbass. I didn’t want to fuck up one of the few good things I had. Not you.’’

The ivory light that rained over his figure soaked him like the rain had done minutes before he arrived, in his blood-stained, dirt-smeared white tee, and his black leather jacket. The only apparel saved his black jeans, smudged with the pavement’s muddy water, but washed off for the most part.

‘‘You wouldn’t have lost me.’’ Annie glanced up, handing him a clean towel.

‘‘I didn’t know that, and neither could you,’’ Eren paused, wiping the sweat off his face, the rain from his arms and his torso, ‘‘for all I knew, I could’ve been very, very wrong.’’

‘‘Now it’s for sure, huh?’’

Annie lifted her oversized shirt, the purple and red tainted her creamy, smooth stomach like she’d been caught in a street fight broken by cops. They all lined with his, every inch of skin and muscle beat up in his body, hers a perfect mirror. Unlike him, however, hers ached no more, they were but temporary, they would fade away in a day or two, while Eren doubled over and held his sides, knowing it’d take more than a week to heal.

‘‘Did it hurt you?’’ He asked, his voice like a feather.

‘‘Very, but it was just a moment.’’ She let the shirt fall down, eyeing Eren up and down. ‘‘Are you sure you don’t want me to take a look at those?’’

‘‘You’ve done more than enough,’’ too pained to flash her a smile, Eren brushed her arm with his fingers, moving away, ‘‘I need to get dressed.’’

‘‘With what? Your clothes are a mess.’’

Eren looked down, his blood fresh on the back of his shirt, staining his fingertips red, seeping through the fabric. His jacket, though it resisted for the most part, found its leather torn over along the center of the back, a little off the sides and down the sleeves.

‘‘C’mon, I’ll toss it in the machine.’’ She took the shirt from his grasp, and left the jacket in his hold. ‘‘You can’t be riding out there with blood on your shirt.’’

He traversed his stomach with his fingertips, sore and sensitive to any touch, as every faint approach made his insides twitch and wince back at the pain. 

His ears picked up the  _ beep _ and the roar of the washing machine firing up.

Annie stared from the door, between her kitchen-also-laundry room and the living room. 

His dark hair parted halfway like silk curtains, a gentle fall to his shoulders. His eyes, piercing his reflection, a cold forest under the dim light studying his figure, and her gaze mimicked his. Her spine burned as she let her eyes travel down his back, every other thought shaken off; the cold pavement hitting every point, the sharp pebbles etched in his arms and how the tears scorched the ends of his face.

She doesn’t remember that last feeling, but she couldn’t ignore the red around his eyes. Or the sudden movements of his lips, mouthing words she forgot to process.

‘‘Annie? Did you hear me?’’

She blinked a couple times, and realized he’d caught her stare hovering on his sweaty, rain-soaked, toned, patched up torso.

‘‘Sorry, sorry,’’ she rolled her shoulders and crossed her arms, fighting off the urge to walk up and slap the smirk that drew on his face, ‘‘what did you say?’’

‘‘You know we’re soulmates, secret’s out.’’ He walked up to her instead, and tossed his rags aside. ‘‘What do you want to do about it?’’ 

Her steps hesitated as he approached her, lips pursed and the door frame pressed against her back.

‘‘I-I don’t know.’’

Eren clicked his tongue against his teeth. He brushed his hair away from his face and sat back down. ‘‘Yeah, I figured.’’

Annie’s eyebrows knit close, her nails dug in the flesh of her arms. ‘‘I’m still processing all this! You can’t just walk in here, tell me we’re soulmates, which you’ve known for five years, and expect me to be fine.’’

‘‘I didn’t think that! I just-- I hoped that I could-! Okay, listen.’’ Eren cut himself off, breathed in, then out, ‘‘I came here but not because I had to or just because I knew you’d find out sooner or later.’’

‘‘Then, why?’’ Annie softened her tone, sitting next to him. 

Their knees touched, their shoulders bumped, but she didn’t see Eren mind at all and neither did he. His eyes frozen in an empty spot of the wooden, carpetless floor, his hands in a mindless prayer, the end of his mouth pushed back until his bare chest shrinked with a deep exhale.

‘‘I’ve always heard that, once you find your soulmate, you  _ have _ to stay together, and if you don’t, you’ll keep finding each other, right?’’

‘‘Yeah.’’

‘‘I didn’t want that,’’ Eren whispered, ‘‘I didn’t think about what I wanted much, or who, just not to  _ have _ to want that person. And then you came along, and for the first time I understood what kind of things I wanted. Who, as well.’’

Her cheeks flushed bright pink, but she leaned an inch closer, ears red and perked up.

‘‘I spent a few good years just, crushing on you, we’d hang around each other so often,’’ he laughed into his hands, ‘‘and then I realized who you truly were to me. Spent even more ignoring my own feelings; I wanted to be sure that you could be a choice.’’

‘‘A choice?!’’ 

‘‘Not like that I could just pick you up whenever I wanted!’’ He clarified, tanned cheeks colored pink. ‘‘That I could want you, because of my own doing. Not fate, not… this,’’ he gestured to himself, the scrapes all over his body, ‘‘but, because I had a choice, and I wanted to choose you for you, regardless of whether you chose me back or not.’’

‘‘Ahh.’’

The color refused to leave Annie’s face and for the sake of the incessant, rapid drum that banged her ribcage, she broke their gaze and forced herself to stare at a blank point on the wall, as if that’d stop his words from replaying in her head.

‘‘Since when do you know what to say like this?’’

‘‘It’s only this, really. I’ve thought it over for years.’’ 

Annie chuckled, much to Eren’s surprise. ‘‘God, you’re such an ass.’’

‘‘Hah, yeah I know.’’

Annie turned back to him; his smile, like his eyes, was wide but tired at the ends. Even smiling must pain him, so she thought, from every hit and roll his face must’ve received.

‘‘You don’t have to do anything you don’t want. You don’t have to choose me, even if the world already has.’’

Annie listened close, their shadows closer together than they had the guts to be.

‘‘So, do you, you know..’’

‘‘I do.’’ He said. ‘‘I still do.’’

If she dared touch his face, Annie was certain she’d feel his cheeks warm, though not to her intensity. To her cold, ghostly touch, he’d lean into at the faintest proximity.

‘‘I want to try with you, too.’’ 

Her slammering heartbeat picked up when she brushed her hand against the back of his; not yet holding it, but the closest either had ever come to. 

Just two fingers laced together, their thoughts lulled to a pleasant quiet with the soft, gentle growl of the washing machine against the ceramic floor and the rain tapping on her window.

**Author's Note:**

> **None of the characters here present or mentioned, nor the franchise, belong to me. This is a work of fiction purely for fun, by a fan, for fans.**
> 
> Prompt: Soulmates AU - ''You bruise when your soulmate bruises''


End file.
